Friday, December 13, 2002

More signs you're not really sorry when you apologize: Sign 1 - This isn't the first time you've said this. After a fiery speech by Mr. Thurmond at a campaign rally in Mississippi for Ronald Reagan in November 1980, Mr. Lott, then a congressman, told a crowd in Jackson, "You know, if we had elected this man 30 years ago, we wouldn't be in the mess we are today." Sign 2 - "When I did that thing in the past, it was just because everyone else was doing it!" "He was the leader of his chapter and a very strong voice in the national fraternity," Mr. Johnson said. "He certainly took a major role in leading the opposition to integration." Mr. Lott's office notedthat the fraternity deliberations took place "almost 40 years ago when our nation was in a different era." Sign 3 - Your record exposes you. Trent Lott led the fight to restore Jefferson Davis' U.S. citizenship and once suggested the Confederate leader would support the Republican Party if alive today. He voted against expanding the Civil Rights Act, and opposed the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, saying there were other heroes ``more deserving.''   1:10:20 PM

How you know someone isn't really sorry when they apologize: "Apology" 1 - "I was just joking!" Earlier in the day, Mr. Lott had issued a statement that stopped short of an apology, saying his comments were made in the spirit of "a lighthearted celebration." Apology 2 - "I'm not apologizing because I was wrong, but because people were offended (and are now calling for my head)." "A poor choice of words conveyed to some that I embraced the discarded policies of the past," Mr. Lott said in a statement. "Nothing could be further from the truth, and I apologize to anyone who was offended." Apology 3 - "Okay, maybe what I said really WAS wrong. Please don't fire me!" "The words were terrible and I regret that," Mr. Lott told the conservative radio and television commentator Sean Hannity in an interview broadcast simultaneously on Mr. Hannity's radio program and the Fox cable-television news channel. "It was certainly not intended to endorse his segregationist policies that he might have been advocating, or was advocating, 54 years ago." Apology 4 - "Okay, okay, okay, I get it. What I said was REALLY bad." His office quickly issued a statement accepting the presidential reprimand. "Senator Lott agrees with President Bush that his words were wrong and he is sorry," said Ron Bonjean, a Lott spokesman. "He repudiates segregation because it is immoral."   12:58:58 PM